For Christina Plemmons, the biggest challenge to attracting candidates to the field of nursing is being able to convey a realistic image of what exactly it is that nurses do. And TV doesn’t help the situation, she said.
“Our nation needs a million more nurses. We are working to educate as many nurses as we can to meet the needs of the state of South Dakota. But there are so many misperceptions about what we do because what most people know about nursing is what they glean from a TV show,” said Plemmons, Ph.D., R.N., CNE, and assistant dean for Cooperative Programs at South Dakota State University. “And, unfortunately, nurses on TV are often either invisible or they are doing very basic things and usually these are performed in a general hospital setting. It’s a very stereotypic image of a nurse that is very limiting in scope and does not reflect the high level of clinical judgment, communication, health promotion and population-based care that a B.S.N. (bachelor of science in nursing) actually does after graduating.”
Plemmons joined the SDSU College of Nursing as an instructor in 2005, two years after graduating from its traditional five-semester nursing program. Since that time, she has seen great change within the college and at the Rapid City site.
Recently, in an effort to alleviate the nursing workforce shortage, the college added a one-year accelerated program to the Rapid City site, in collaboration with the SDSU’s nursing education site on the Northern State University campus in Aberdeen. Now Plemmons is overseeing tremendous enrollment growth in Rapid City.
The intensive one-year (January to December) accelerated program is designed for students who have already completed a bachelor’s degree — in any field — and want to return for additional coursework and clinical experiences that are required to become a registered nurse. Unlike a regular semester-based nursing program, students in the accelerated program work in eight-week increments, doubling down on class and lab times and clinical hours shared between school locations in Rapid City, Aberdeen, and Sioux Falls.
For example, Rapid City students enrolled in the accelerated program take courses at Black Hills State University-Rapid City. Their skills lab and simulation experiences are held at the Monument Health Sciences Building, and clinical opportunities are scheduled at a wide variety of health care institutions across the Black Hills area, while Aberdeen students participate in coursework, lab and simulation at a single site on the NSU campus.
In Sioux Falls, accelerated classes meet on the campus of Southeast Technical Institute at the Terrance Sullivan Health Science Center. No matter the campus site, all SDSU nursing students in the accelerated program do the same coursework and put in the same number of clinical hours as students enrolled in the traditional five-semester program, it’s just at a faster pace.
“Students enrolled in the accelerated program are motivated from the get-go,” Plemmons said. “Most hail from different backgrounds, too. Some are looking for a possible career change, others thought nursing was the direction they wanted to go in but didn’t select it when they first started college. Others are wanting to continue on in the nursing profession for an advanced practice role within the field. A few have even come from a business background and are now interested in starting a nonprofit related to healthcare. The possibilities are endless within this career.”
Plemmons said it’s important to continue educating younger students in middle and high school on how attractive a career in nursing really is.
“As we continue to hold clinics and seminars with these upcoming students, we want them to understand the autonomy that a nurse has in his or her chosen field,” she said. “We have the privilege of working with patients and their families at what is often one of the most vulnerable times in their lives and we have an ability to make quite an impact on their care.”
An impact not often depicted on a TV show.
More information about the SDSU accelerated nursing program can be found on the SDSU College of Nursing website.
